


Gone

by LoveChilde



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, BAMF Hardison, Families of Choice, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Parker is Special, Past Violence, Post-Series, Rejection, So is Eliot, Sophie to the rescue, hurt/comfort bingo, past violence against children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 08:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveChilde/pseuds/LoveChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day Hardison comes home from shopping and finds Eliot gone. Just- gone. </p>
<p>AKA the one where Hardison won't let past crimes tear up his family. Post series, for the February H/C Bingo challenge. Prompts are rejection, skeletons in the closet, prostitution, and my wildcard is group comfort. Note that I'm using the 'compromising morals and beliefs for money' meaning of prostitution, and no money for sex was involved. Post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> None of them are mine. My eternal thanks to Ishouldbewriting for speedy and excellent beta work, and to Hagar972 for brainstorming ideas.

“Honey, I’m home!” Hardison came into the offices of Leverage Inc. to find them oddly silent, for the time of day. While he was the only one who lived over the office, since Nate and Sophie had left, the others usually hung around there all day and only went home to sleep- and sometimes not even that, as Hardison had the biggest bed of all three of them. “Parker? Eliot?”

Silence. Hardison put down the groceries in the kitchen, and went hunting. There was no sign of Eliot anywhere- not his keys, phone, jacket, nothing at all. Eventually, he found Parker sitting on the balcony railing, something she only did when truly upset or angry. She said the height made her feel better. “Parker? What’s up? Where’s Eliot?”

“Gone.” Her voice was flat, and she didn’t look at Hardison. 

“Gone? Whaddaya mean, gone? Scouting for a job? Visiting family? Gone shopping?”

“Gone.” She repeated, with the same lack of inflection that made a cold dread settle in Hardison’s stomach and attempt to crawl up to his chest. Automatically he pulled out his phone and hit speed dial. A robotic voice informed him that the number was no longer in use. 

“Parker,” Hardison thought he was showing remarkable control, all things considered, “what happened? Why did- where did Eliot go? What did you do?” As her silence stretched and her eyes only got harder, he added, quieter, “What did _he_ do?”

“Something bad.” He hadn’t heard her that cold in years. “Something wrong. Eliot is no longer a part of Leverage Inc.” Finally, she looked down at Hardison, which only made him feel worse: her eyes were stark, flinty- terrifying, frankly. “Don’t try to look for him, Hardison. He’s never coming back.” 

“But- babe, _why_?” Hardison hated the way his voice wavered on the question, just a little, but this seemed like a bad moment to play macho. 

“Because I said so. I’m in charge, and it was my decision.” Her eyes went a little more distant, a faint note of confusion stealing into the flatness of her voice, “He didn’t even argue. Just nodded, took his stuff, and went. Forget him. He’s not-” her breath hitched, just for an instance, before she continued, “he’s not worth our time, Hardison. Don’t waste yours looking for him.” 

“The hell I won’t.” It was pointless to try and talk Parker out of anything when she was like this, but Hardison went on talking anyway, just to keep her aware of his plans.. “I’ma find him, and we’ll work this out, and you two’ll make up and everything’s gonna be _fine_.” And that was that. 

Except, of course, that it wasn’t. Eliot’s phone was disconnected, the number out of service and the GPS off. He’d left his car parked just outside his apartment, which still had all his things except his go-bag, but no indication of where he’d gone. All of the email addresses Hardison had on record for him returned an error message, and there was no credit card activity. None of the passports Hardison had made for him pinged on any network, and after three hours of cursing and trying new things, Hardison gave up trying, for a while. Eliot was damn good at disappearing, and could be halfway across the country, on his way to Canada or Mexico, or in the building across the road, and they might never find him. Hardison was good, but Eliot, unless he made a mistake, could be a fucking _ninja_. 

Parker was still sitting on the railing where he’d left her. “You should come in, we should eat.”

“Order food.” Her voice still had the same distant quality. “Maybe soup. Or chocolate.”

“There’s leftover stew-”

“I threw it out.” She said it in the same tone she might’ve said that the stew was full of spiders. 

Eliot had made the stew. “Should I throw me out, too? Or you? He touched us both plenty.” Anger at this arbitrary, unexplained tearing apart of his family flared in Hardison’s gut, and he said it more sharply than he’d intended. “I’m having stew. And you’re gonna come in and explain to me what the hell happened. You’ve made your point, now talk to me.” He’d let her sulk too long, anyway. 

“There’s nothing to talk about.” 

Hardison turned around and walked away, afraid that if he said anything else it would be something he could never un-say. 

They didn’t talk for two full days. Hardison had most of his resources, digital and otherwise, focused on tracking Eliot down, and Parker went about her business, tense and silent, but completely adamant that as long as Hardison wanted to talk about Eliot, she wasn’t willing to talk at all. Since Hardison didn’t want to hear anything unless it was about Eliot, it worked out, in a way. A bad way, yes, but it worked. 

Parker never came to bed, not the first night or the one after it, and after a couple of hours of trying to sleep, Hardison gave up and went back to his screens. By the end of two days, he was on his last nerve, exhausted, jittery and lost, and Parker still wouldn’t talk. So Hardison decided to play dirty. 

“What are you doing?” She was in their bedroom and on his side of the bed before he’d even noticed her coming, standing between him and the bag on the bed.

“What’s it look like? I’m packing.” He waved a shirt in one hand by way of demonstration. 

“We’re not going anywhere. There’s no case.”

“I’m going. I’m gonna find Eliot. If you don’t wanna help me that’s fine.” That was a huge lie, but he didn’t feel like getting into that conversation again. “I don’t care what he did, Parker, he’s family. You can’t just kick him out without even tellin’ me why.” 

“Could and did.” She shrugged. “He’s not worth worrying about, Hardison.” Finally, her voice wasn’t flat anymore. Now she just sounded tired, and sad. “We can’t work with him anymore.”

“But Parker- we knew what he’d done, when we started out. We knew he was a hitter.” Hardison sat down on the bed, put the shirt in the bag, and patted the empty space next to him to invite Parker to sit. She stayed standing, and he went on, seeing no sign that she was going to respond. “We knew he’d- killed people. A bunch of people. He was pretty upfront about doing things he regretted. What’s changed?” True, Eliot probably had more secrets than all of them except maybe Sophie, and he’d been a killer for hire- but he didn’t try to hide that. It had never mattered before, not to Parker. 

Parker stared at the floor, silent. Hardison sighed, from deep in his soul. “Fine. Try another way. I guess you found out something we didn’t know about. How? Did he just tell you out of the blue?” 

“It was on TV.” She spoke quietly enough that he wasn’t sure at first what she’d said. He frowned. 

“On TV? Like it was something he did just now? While he was with us? That don’t make sense, babe. We were with him every day and most nights.” 

She shook her head very slightly, and Hardison fought down the urge to get up and hug her. “Not recent. Years ago. There was a show about unsolved murder cases. A whole family was killed - their car exploded, there was a bomb. A couple, a sixteen year old boy, and - and two little girls. Ten years old and six years old. Only-” she swallowed visibly and continued, “only the boy, he was also shot by a sniper, from far away.”

Hardison felt sick. “How d’you know it was Eliot, though? Could’ve been somebody else.”

“He was there in the room with me- and there was a look on his face, like when we were taking down Moreau. When he killed those men. And- you remember what he told me back then, not to ask because he’d answer?”

“Yeah.” This was very bad. “You asked?”

“Uh huh.” She looked up at him then, and her eyes were cold again even though he could see her trembling, just a little, with anger or sadness or horror, he wasn’t sure. “He just- he admitted it. Said it was his doing. Said it was the last kill contract he ever took, the last time he- he worked for Moreau.” She shook her head harder, as if trying to shake the thought of it away. “Kids, Hardison. Little girls. Because he was paid for it. Like they were roaches and someone wanted to get rid of them.” 

Now Hardison was sure he was going to puke,. “It might’ve been a mistake? Or an accident?”

“Eliot doesn’t make mistakes. Not when he kills. He gets his mark, always.” He knew it was true, but still, Hardison thought there might be more to the story and was about to ask, when Parker continued. “He didn’t even try to change my mind. Or explain. He just- left.” The cold in her eyes melted into tears, which she blinked furiously. In a distant way, Hardison thought that he’d seen Parker cry maybe twice in the time he’d known her, and somehow Eliot was always involved. He gave in to the need to pull her to him, and she let him. 

They slept curled together that night, exhausted and dejected, but Hardison woke up filled with energy, too early for even the birds to be up, and rolled out of bed. 

“What’re you doin’?” Parker opened one eye and gave him a bleary, suspicious look.

“Calling in the big guns. There has to be more to this. And Eliot- he’s a fucked up idiot, you know that.” They all were, in their ways, but Eliot’s fuck-up was making himself a martyr. Hardison refused to believe that Eliot would just murder kids like that, in cold blood. He wanted the whole story. And in order to get the story- “Nate?” 

“Hardison? D’you have idea what time it is?” Nate sounded mostly asleep. It made Hardison feel better just to hear his voice. Sure, Nate could be an asshole, but he was their asshole, and a good person to have on their side of the field. Especially now.

“Nope. We need your help. You with Sophie?” 

“What happened?” The short exchange was enough to get Nate focused and awake, which was good.

“Eliot left. We need to find him, and figure out what happened.” Hardison filled Nate in with a few short sentences. “I don’t believe that’s the whole story, what was on TV, what he told Parker. Gotta be more to it. I’m not gonna let him run away over this.”

There was a long silence, and then “We’ll be there by noon. Dig up everything you can about that family.”

“Will do.” Under most other circumstances Hardison would’ve been embarrassed over how relieved he was, knowing help was on the way, but he was too relieved to be embarrassed. Parker gave him a Look, and he shrugged. “What? If Eliot really wants to disappear, we need a sneaky bastard to catch him, and Sophie to talk him down.” He didn’t add that he was also hoping that Sophie’d also bring Parker around and help her move past her anger at Eliot, however justified it was. He could usually handle Parker at her worst, but this was something well beyond any ‘worst’ he’d encountered before. Hardison felt that he was too unsettled himself to do this without help. Besides, it’d be nice to be together again, even under crappy circumstances.

Parker rolled over and glared at him. “We don’t really need them.”

“We really, really do, babe. I’m not letting things end like this. You guys are family, I’m not just letting it fall apart. Besides, neither one of us is half the fighter Eliot is, and we need him for the violent parts of the job.” Hardison hated putting it like that, because he- because _they_ needed Eliot for so much more than just being a hitter, and saying it that way made it almost like it had been when he’d been a mercenary. Eliot was more to Leverage Inc. and to Hardison and Parker than just a hitter, much more, but putting things in terms of utility and pragmatism worked on Parker better than appealing to emotions, sometimes. For all her anger at Eliot and what he’d been once, Hardison knew that Parker saw nothing wrong about using people if she had to- and without Eliot to keep them safe, the jobs they could take would be limited. Besides, trios were more stable than duos. 

After a moment of considering this, parker sat up in bed and drew the covers around herself. “Fine. _If_ you can find them. We could always find another hitter.”

“Not like Eliot. Ain’t nobody like him.” Most hitters were assholes. And none of the hitters Hardison had ever met, not that there were many, could cook like Eliot. “I’m doing this, Parker. You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

She thought about this for almost a minute while Hardison waited, barely breathing, but then she shrugged, and stood up gracefully, covers pooling to the floor. “For you, I’ll help. But I don’t have to like it.”

“No you don’t.” Something in Hardison’s gut untwisted, a sudden relaxation where he hadn’t even noticed he’d been tense, and he smiled for the first time in days. “But thanks, Parker.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond; he had homework to finish and data to gather before Nate and Sophie got there. “They’ll be here later today. I’m gonna be working ‘til then. Come watch?”

She followed, silent and pausing along the way to pull off her shirt and pull on a clean one. It was a testament to Hardison’s level of distraction that he didn’t even stop and turn around to watch it happen. 

Starting with the information given on the show Parker had seen and working backwards, it wasn’t very hard to compile all the information openly available on the family Eliot had probably maybe killed. The King family- mom, dad, three kids. Nothing unusual about them, as far as news sites reported at the time of the incident ( _murder_ , Hardison’s mind insisted, but he firmly pushed the thought down). They were just an accountant and a librarian, living in a small town in Texas, near the border, with three unremarkable children, and if some hard-working medical examiner hadn’t reconstructed enough of the teenaged son to find the bullet hole in his head, made by a high powered rifle, police wouldn’t written it off as a case of misidentification in a gang war, or a cartel hit that reached the wrong people. As it was, according to the news sources, police were just mystified, and the case had gone unsolved for years. 

Things that weren’t on the news, police records and protocols that Hardison had to break down a few firewalls to reach, didn’t add much more to the story. The parents’ records were, as far as authorities could tell, clean, and there was nobody who wanted them dead. The teen boy, Carl, had a few misdemeanor arrests, some history of drug use, shoplifting, a few suspected cases of animal abuse, but nothing that would cause anybody to pay someone money to kill him. Hardison set a few programs to comb through likely messageboards and other websites and alert him if anything came up, and settled down to wait. There had to be more to the story. 

Parker had made very late breakfast that doubled as an early lunch (slightly burned toast, slightly underdone eggs, and Hardison missed Eliot more than ever), and they were both eating when the knock on the door announced Nate and Sophie’s arrival. The door wasn’t locked, but Hardison appreciated the knock for what it was- acknowledgement that this was their space now, their firm, and no longer Nate’s to come into without asking. It was nice of them. 

Parker opened the door, her shoulders squared somewhere between defence and offense. “I’m glad to see you, but we don’t really need help.” 

“Then don’t call it help.” Sophie gave her a quick hug and let go before Parker even thought of struggling, and moved on to Hardison, who got a much longer hug. “Call it being interested in where Eliot is, and taking advantage of Hardison’s resources to locate him. If we can do anything to advance the search, consider it our fair share of the work.”

It was clear enough that Parker was happy to see them as well, because she didn’t grumble about it after that one statement. 

It didn’t take Hardison very long to catch Nate and Sophie up on the little he knew. “It just doesn’t make any sense,” he finished. 

Nate looked thoughtful, while Sophie’s face was carefully neutral. Hardison wondered whether she was having a fit of anger similar to Parker’s, only better concealed. Or possibly she was as upset as he had been- or she didn’t feel anything he could guess, Sophie was complicated like that. 

“You’re right, there’s too many pieces missing to see the full picture yet. And I suspect there are two people who could tell us why he did it- Eliot himself, and Moreau.”

Silence reigned for a few seconds, until Sophie voiced the thought Hardison had just had as well: “The question is, which one of them would be harder to reach?”

****

Two days later, they were all starting to think that trying to reach Moreau might be the better option. There was still no sign of Eliot and no new information Hardison could find. He’d widened the search to every agency he could think of who might’ve been keeping an eye on Eliot or who might have had information about the Kings. So far, all he’d discovered was the disconcerting fact that everyone who’d been watching Eliot were now watching the other members of Leverage Inc., in hope that he would surface. It was an uncomfortable thought. 

Sophie wasn’t bored yet, but she was a little frustrated. She was sure Eliot was still close- he’d be either halfway across the world, or right across the street, and she bet on the latter. However guilty he felt, however firm Parker had sounded kicking him out, Sophie was sure Eliot still cared enough to stay and make sure they were all safe. In fact, her and Nate being there might be the one thing which would allow Eliot to actually leave, which worried Sophie. If in coming, they had effectively made finding Eliot impossible...But she didn’t let herself linger on that kind of thought. Instead, she watched. 

She went food shopping, and watched the people around her. She sat in coffee shops and in the park closest to the apartment, and watched people come and go. She walked the streets, waited in bus stops, and always, always kept an eye out for the people whom nobody else noticed. 

This plan of action had the added advantage of getting her out of HQ, where tensions were mounting. Hardison was jittery and worried, trying hard not to blame Parker and mostly succeeding, but not always. Parker was clearly having second thoughts about telling Eliot to leave, but was just as clearly not ready to admit it, and was sullen and defensive about everything else instead. And Nate- well, Nate had fallen out of the habit of working with people other than Sophie, and it showed. Besides, at this stage of the op, there was nothing for him to do. 

On the third day of watching, something finally caught her attention. Something about the walk, the stance, the alert watchfulness that was just that familiar. He was on the far street corner, a block away from the Leverage offices; she’d walked past him twice on both previous days, and never noticed him beyond registering that a person was there, leaning against the wall. It was only when she saw him moving that things clicked. With a felt hat obscuring half his face, his hair several shades darker, and beard stubble, swathed in oversized and threadbare layers of coats, there was nothing about him that resembled Eliot- until he moved.

When she was sure, Sophie got up and walked away. She knew she needed to plan this carefully, reel him in patiently, force a meeting, but use as soft a touch as possible, or he’d bolt. 

The next day, casually walking by his corner, Sophie dropped a single English penny coin in the battered cup Eliot had in front of him. He never even looked up at her. She weathered the tension at the office and returned to the hotel room Nate and her had taken to spend a quiet night in. She didn’t tell any of them, not about finding Eliot and not about her plan. Hardison didn’t have the kind of patience this needed, Nate couldn’t help, and she worried that Parker might even make it worse somehow. They’d all just have to wait until she was ready to let them in- which would hopefully only be after she’d talked to Eliot in private. 

Sophie wore two different disguises the day after that, when she dropped two more pence in the cup. They were good disguises, if she said so herself- a blonde in business attire, and a much older woman in ragged hippie chic. She got into both of those at the hotel room, waving off Nate’s questions as to what exactly she was doing. Unlike Hardison and Parker, he’d learned not to ask too many questions when she was working, and trusted her judgment- which was why she didn’t even go to the office that day. 

By the third day, she was almost sure that Eliot had noticed the English coins, and there was a good chance he’d spotted her, even disguised. The ball was in his court, then: he could leave, just shuffle away, switch disguises or corners or just leave the city and run away, or he could confront her. She allowed him the space to choose, and braced herself for disappointment. She dropped a penny coin in the cup in the morning, wearing a lovely auburn wig and oversized sunglasses, to no reaction from Eliot, just like the previous times. Either the fifth time would do it, she figured, or he’d leave. She’d always been an excellent gambler. 

That evening, when she reached out her hand over the cup, he grabbed her. For a long moment, they stared at each other, and for a moment his eyes were unfamiliar, and Sophie had a weird and disconnected feeling that maybe, after all, she’d been wrong. Then she blinked, and the world righted itself again. “Nice contacts.”

“They’re a bitch.” He kept his voice low, and Sophie could feel how tense he was through his grip. He was ready to get up and walk away. “What’re you playing at?”

“I could ask you the same.” She answered his tension with calm coolness, asking, but affecting disinterest. “If you’re hiding, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”

“Neither are you.”

“I’m not hiding.” She allowed herself a small smile. Then she glanced around them, at the human traffic flowing down the pavement, and pursed her lips. “Could we take this somewhere else? We’re drawing attention.”

“You mean, you’re drawing attention to _me_.” Eliot’s lips drew back in a silent snarl. “What do you want, Sophie?”

“To talk. Just to talk.” She put every bit of sincerity she could into her voice and body language. “The others don’t know I’ve found you, and I won’t tell them unless you want me to.” That wasn’t entirely the truth, because she’d practice discretion and her own judgment in this as well, but it might be enough to put him at ease. 

It wasn’t. “Doubt they care where I am.”

“ Don’t be childish, Eliot. You know they do.” She’d been there too long, and people were starting to notice. “I’ll be at the park bench closest to the juice stand in an hour, if you’d like to talk. I’ll wait there for an hour, and if you don’t show up, I’ll leave you alone and let you resolve your problems with Parker on your own. Deal?”

He made no verbal reply, but the steel-strong grip on her wrist dropped, and Eliot folded into himself, became just another nondescript bum, which was answer enough. Sophie floated on, caught in the stream of people, satisfied that she’d hooked her mark. That he had the option not to follow didn’t worry her much; if he’d truly wanted to leave, he’d have already been far, far away with none of them the wiser. He’d had plenty of time to disappear, and he’d chosen to stay. 

An hour and fifteen minutes later, he dropped on the bench next to her, far enough away that it wasn’t clear whether they were together or not, but close enough to talk quietly. She sipped at her green juice in silence for several minutes, until he broke.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“I’m waiting to hear what you have to say. I gave you four pence, that’s enough for your thoughts.” 

He snorted, and shook his head slightly. “I don’t have anything to say.”

She raised an eyebrow and gave him a long, steady look, waiting. He was quiet for a while longer, as the night deepened around them. “Parker was right, you know; I shouldn’t be with them. I - you don’t know.”

“I know as much as Parker and Hardison know, now. Which is everything Hardison could dig up on the King family.” He visibly flinched when she said their name. “It wasn’t much, you know. They seemed like normal people.”

“They were.” His voice was a dry rasp. “Nice, normal people.”

“So why, Eliot? Why did Moreau want them gone?”

Another tiny shake of the head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does. I think that the Eliot Spencer I know wouldn’t kill little girls, just because someone told him to.” 

“You have no idea of the things I did because I was told to. Because I was _paid_ to. I was paid for that job too. That’s all it was, just a job.” She couldn’t see his expression clearly, but the set of his shoulders was tense and angry. “Just another hit.”

“Your last one. The one that made you walk away from a very dangerous man, and away from the life you had. In all the time we worked together, Eliot, in all the time since that last job, you’ve been trying to make up for it. What was different about that one?”

He shrugged one shoulder, a snap of a motion, of clear negativity, and didn’t answer.

She allowed him a few more minutes to decide to talk on his own, and then dug in with a ruthlessness that had always made her dangerous to elderly rich men and shady politicians. “You’ve always known this would happen, didn’t you? That someone would find out? That’s why you didn’t argue- because for you, this was always how it was going to end.” 

He didn’t answer, which she took to be confirmation. 

“Why did Moreau want them dead?”

He didn’t answer, but drew deeper into himself, shoulders hunched and head firmly down. 

“Eliot, come back with me. Explain what happened. They’ll listen- _we’ll_ listen.” 

“I can’t.” He still sounded angry, but by this point Sophie figured that he was expressing anger as it was safer than other emotions he might be feeling. Eliot’s anger couldn’t hurt either of them.. 

“They’ll let you in, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I think we can avoid awkward scenes.” She knew she was lying as she said it, and Eliot probably knew it too. 

“No, I mean I _can’t_.” He glanced at her sideways and went on talking to the ground at his feet. “I left- and that was about the second hardest thing I’ve ever done. When I have to leave again- and I will, Soph, that’s not even a question of ‘if’-” He glanced at her sideways and went on talking to the ground at his feet, “I don’t know if I can do it again.”

The anger was gone, and he sounded so very unhappy that Sophie wasn’t sure whether to hug him or shake him. As neither were a viable option, she only sighed. “Very well. Tell me then. _I_ deserve an explanation as much as they do.”

“Parker didn’t want an explanation.” Now he sounded sullen, and Sophie let her frustration show, her voice sharper, biting.

“You never tried to offer one! You just ran away. And even in that, you didn’t do a very good job, did you?”

His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Don’t play mind games with me, Soph. I don’t have the energy for it.” 

She inclined her head very slightly in concession. “Then _talk _. Don’t make me pull it out of you, it’ll only hurt more.”__

__Another shrug, but then his posture went just a little tighter, a bit more guarded and distant. “What do you want to know?”_ _

__Sophie looked around to make sure no one was within hearing distance, and when she was satisfied they were reasonably safe, she started. “You only shot the son.”_ _

__“He was the target.”_ _

__“Why?”_ _

__“He was- it was a border town. Carl was disrupting Moreau’s trade across the border. Drugs, women, catching too much attention. Too much heat.” She could read the tension in him even through the layers of clothes, though his voice was uninflected, as if he was dictating a report._ _

__“He was_ sixteen_.” Sophie tried to maintain a calm neutrality, but it wasn’t easy. Eliot huffed a bitter chuckle.

“He was. By that age, he’d killed five people that Moreau knew about, and had effective control of three local gangs through their adult leaders, who were scared to death of him. He was crazy, intelligent, ruthless- like Moreau, only without the European elegance and without a full high school education. Worked better on the locals and it was cutting into Moreau’s business.” He looked up briefly, then back down. “Moreau wasn’t moving people across that border, but Carl, his gangs were into that as well. Moreau worried it’d call down too much heat on the area. In the end, Moreau had to move his operations anyway.”

“So he was your only target?”

“Yeah.” The word hung between them, soft and full of sorrow. When it didn’t look like Eliot was going to continue, Sophie prodded.

“So what happened?”

“I got stupid. And sloppy.” 

She waited, knowing there was more. Eliot was a pragmatist, but he’d never use a bomb to take out a single person when a bullet would do. Even as a mercenary, she doubted he wouldn’t have cared about collateral damage. The silence stretched, five minutes, ten minutes, twelve. Finally she gave up. “You got stupid and sloppy and killed a family of five, Eliot. I don’t believe you.”

His head jerked up and he stared at her, but then his head slumped again. “Then don’t.”

“I think it does, Eliot.” He flinched, just a little, every time she said his name, so she kept doing it. “I know your reputation, you’re precise. Explosives aren’t your speciality. Was there somebody else involved, who also tried to kill-” she almost said ‘the boy’, and paused when she realized what a bad idea that would be “Carl King?”

“No. Nobody else, that time. Just me. And him.”

“Police never figured out who’d put the bomb in the car. They wouldn’t have figured out Carl had been shot if someone hadn’t gone to the effort of putting them all back together. Were you trying to clean up the evidence, burning him so you’d leave no tracks?”

“ _No._ ” He glowered at her again, briefly, but didn’t add anything except that denial. 

“Eliot...You’re making this harder than it has to be. We can keep playing guessing games, or you can talk.”

“Or maybe I walk away, and you leave me the hell alone. Maybe I don’t want to talk about it after all.” Despite the words, Eliot made no move to leave, though. 

“If you want to walk away you’re free to go.” 

They sat in silence for another five minutes. Sophie’s rear was getting numb on the cold bench, but she sat still, aware that any change would be noted and might shift the fragile balance between them. Finally, after half an eternity, Eliot spoke.

“I tracked him for a couple weeks. I saw him smash his sister into a wall, punch his mom in the face, threaten both his parents with a knife- he had the entire family terrorised. Kept them with him all the time, too. I wasn’t the only one on the job, at first, but I was the only one who stuck it out. He made sure he was either surrounded by his thugs, or with his family Used them as a human shield.I thought I was smarter and better, that I could get him from a distance and finish it, clean.” He was quiet again for almost a minute, but this time Sophie held back until he continued on his own. “I was up on the roof, a few blocks away, with a rifle. He was real easy to see in the back seat, when they all got in the car, because he sat in the middle, with his sisters on either side of him. I got him, and I knew it was a clean hit. One shot. And then the car exploded.” 

She knew better than to ask if he’d hit the engine as well by mistake. Cars didn’t really explode like that, and from the way he spoke, Sophie could guess it wasn’t an accident. She asked it another way, “Did you ever find out what happened?”

“Yeah...later. Two weeks later. After it happened, I left. Got rid of the gun and got out of there. Moreau found out after his people moved in on the gangs- he told me. He- Carl, I mean. I told you he was a smart guy, and knew there were people after him. So he made sure his family was close to him the whole time, and he had- a dead man’s switch rigged, when he was in the car with them. And one for when he was at home. Moreau said he bragged to his people, that if he was killed, the whole town would hear about it, and his mom wouldn’t need to think about nice things to say at his funeral.” Now that he was talking, Eliot was barely stopping to breathe, and his voice tugged on Sophie’s heart even as the full horror of the situation made her own breath catch. 

“He- Carl King put the bomb in the car? On purpose?”

Eliot nodded, and looked down again. “He wanted to go out with a bang. And he couldn’t stand the thought of his family being relieved about him being gone. He knew they would have been. The police never found his blog, but Moreau did. He showed it to me- but he didn’t actually care about the family, either..” His voice wasn’t entirely steady, and when he paused for breath at last, it came shallow and too fast. Sophie wanted to touch him, just a hand on his arm for comfort, but didn’t think the gesture would be welcome. Not yet. 

“So you left?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t go on doing- what Moreau wanted me to do. "Haven't used a gun since then. Least, not till we ran into Moreau again."

Sophie remembered just how upset Eliot had been, after that gunfight. She nodded, not sure whether he even registered it. “It wasn’t your fault that they died.”

“It was. I killed Carl. That was what triggered the explosion. Nobody else even tried- if I hadn’t tried, maybe- things woulda been different.” 

“You couldn’t have known, Eliot.” As she’d expected, when she put a hand on his arm he shook her off almost violently.

“You don’t get it, Sophie. I could’ve just refused to do it to begin with. He was _sixteen_. Just a kid. I could’ve said no. Other people said no. But to me it was just a job I was paid for. And I was Moreau’s attack dog, I did what he needed done. That’s all I was, his killer on retainer. Death for money.”

Sophie was about to say something else, however sure she was it wouldn’t work, when they heard footsteps approaching. At her side, Eliot froze. “I thought you said they didn’t know.”

“They didn’t.” Sophie could see them now, even in the dark of the park: Hardison in the lead, Parker a step behind him, and Nate trailing behind. “They tried to plant a bug on me yesterday, since I wouldn’t go on comms, but I found it and threw it away.”

“You found _one_ bug,” Hardison answered, close enough to hear her last words, “We had Nate put three on you, every morning. Figured whatever you were doing, it was working better than what we did. Looks like we were right.” 

She should have realized they wouldn’t trust her, but them recruiting Nate was unexpected, and Sophie favored him with a glare, which he answered with a shrug. She’d make him pay for it later, but for now it had actually saved many awkward explanations. Getting Eliot to explain once had been hard; twice would have been near impossible. She should’ve recorded it herself. Eliot, meanwhile, had his eyes closed and was still as a rock, barely breathing at her side. Sophie asked, just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, “So you heard it all?”

“Yeah. And Nate had it confirmed by Moreau, too.” Hardison jerked his head towards Nate, “Reached out to Vittori’s people in San Lorenzo a couple days back, took them until today to get Moreau to a phone for us. Secure line and everything.” 

“The President does owe us a few favors.” Nate noted drily, “And Moreau was strangely happy to talk. I think he’s been bored the past few years.” 

“He told us what happened. About the bomb in the car and everything.” Hardison continued, with a sideways look towards Parker. The blonde’s face was sealed, her expression cool but not angry, as if she still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. 

Eliot still hadn’t moved, or opened his eyes. He was wearing the kind of look Sophie had seen on marks who knew they’d lost everything. Hardison left the group and moved closer to the bench, and nudged Sophie’s shoulder, “D’ja mind?”

She got up and motioned towards her spot. He nodded his thanks, but didn’t sit down yet. Instead, he came to face Eliot. “Look at me, Eliot. I ain’t talking to a four year old, we see you even if you close your eyes.” 

Eliot, his eyes still closed, started to stand, but Hardison pushed him down hard with both hands on his shoulders, and then, since his hands were already there, gave him one hard shake. “You sit your ass _down_ , man, or I swear to god I will punch you, which will be embarrassing for everybody. Sit your ass down and listen to me. And open your damn eyes and _keep_ ‘em open.” 

Eliot had already opened his eyes before, but he hadn’t done anything to stop Hardison or shake him off, and now he sat, eyes open and empty of anything, and stared up at him. Hardison drew back, startled. “The fuck did you do to your eyes? That’s just freaky, man.” 

“Contacts.” Sophie supplied, when it looked like Eliot wasn’t going to answer. “He was trying to blend in with the homeless population, and people notice blue more than brown.”

“Freaky.” Hardison repeated, but then shook it off and looked down at Eliot again. “You had me worried sick, d’you know that? I thought you were gone for good. That you’d gone and done- something stupid. Don’t _ever_ disappear on me like that again, d’ya hear? _Never. Again_. You don’t get to leave without sayin’ goodbye, you understand? No matter what Parker says. This is a three-way partnership, and you don’t walk away from it just ‘cause something goes wrong, without telling me. You got that?” 

A silent nod was all the answer Eliot gave, but it seemed to be enough because Hardison nodded as well, decisive. Sophie hadn’t seen him this assertive very often; he’d matured in the months since the team had split, and she decided she rather liked it. Hardison’s attitude was clearly not the only thing that had evolved, because when his hands moved to cup Eliot’s face, he was allowed to leave them there. 

“You didn’t kill those little girls. You didn’t kill their parents. You did a job- it was an ugly, nasty job for an ugly, nasty man, to kill someone who was worse than both of you. But that family dying, that wasn’t on you. That was a monster’s work, Eliot, and you weren’t no monster. Not then, not now. You hearin’ me?”

It felt too intimate to watch so of course, Sophie couldn’t look away. The expression on Eliot’s face twisting into something like pain, but deeper and older. One of Hardison’s thumbs slid across Eliot’s cheek, wiping away wetness that reflected the light from the streetlight above them briefly. 

“You’re _ours_ now. And we don’t give up on our own.” Sophie had the feeling that Hardison was talking to Parker more than to Eliot, at that point. Eliot’s eyes shifted towards Parker, who tilted her head very slightly and moved forward, closer to Eliot, blocking Sophie’s view of him. 

“Take out the contacts.” She sounded almost curious, still unsure. “I need to see your eyes.” 

There was a rustle of movement and a muttered ‘ugh, nasty’ from Hardison, and then Eliot sat up and looked at Parker again, shaking off Hardison’s hand on his shoulder. Sophie casually moved to where she could see better, and found herself standing next to Nate. “Three bugs?” 

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, and she huffed in exasperation. He’d definitely pay for it later. 

Parker looked at Eliot for a long, long time without saying anything. As he had with Sophie earlier, eventually Eliot broke the silence himself.

“I’m sorry. I- there’s nothing else I can say. I can’t ever make amends for something like that, can’t ever clear the debt. But I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry I kicked you out.” The coolness was gone, and Parker’s voice wavered and broke, but she took a breath and continued, steadier. “I’m still angry. But not at you anymore. I think. Now we can be angry about it together.” She reached out to him, and Hardison pulled them both closer to him, and Eliot’s ‘damnnit, Hardison’ was muffled by a three-way hug that didn’t look like it was going to end anytime soon. 

“We should leave.” Nate spoke very quietly, right into Sophie’s ear. “They don’t need us anymore, and they do need the time to talk, to work through this. We’ve done our part.” 

He was right; as much as she wanted to stay and witness this, it wasn’t their business anymore. She nodded, and he took her hand as they moved away. 

“We’ll call, tomorrow.” Sophie promised, mostly to herself. 

Nate looked back as well and half-smiled. “The day after, maybe.” 

Just before getting into the taxi at the edge of the park, she looked back again. On the bench, in a circle of yellow light, the three active members of Leverage Inc. still hadn’t moved.


End file.
